AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ:
We live like knowers, striving toward absolute information,
but death is a perfect insult that frustrates all knowing.
The death of an other convicts us of our own death, and makes
us ponder. But no ultimate knowledge comes from this pondering.
Death is the frustration of knowledge. The knowledge that
an other has died is itself the frustration of all knowledge.
We are not knowing in our pondering over death. We are contemplating
Mystery, the answerless Paradox of our living existence. The
death of an other and the death of "I" confound
the whole spectacle and consolation of knowledge. Death is
not the attainment of any state we can know. Death is sacrifice.
The only way to come to terms with death is to come into a
harmony with its Process, its Way. And death is sacrifice,
not knowledge or a Way of ultimate knowledge. Death is the
sacrifice of knowledge, of independence, of experience, and
of self.
The observation of the death of an other and the conviction
of one's own necessary death are not a means to knowledge
but a means to sacrifice. Sacrifice is the Law. Knowledge
or secure independence is that which is sacrificed. If we
truly observe and feel the death of an other, we are moved
to live by Wisdom rather than knowledge. Wisdom is the presumption
of alignment with the Way or Process of existence, which is
Sacrifice. But knowledge is only a reflection of or about
the way things work. The knower is independent, not a participant
in the process that is observed. But Wisdom is always already
confounded, relieved of independence, so that there is no
option but to submit to the Process of existence itself.
"I" is the whole body. But "I" does
not know what a single thing is. "I" cannot inspect
the existence of any thing and know what it is. "I"
is, therefore, not a point of view toward or other than the
existence of any thing or condition that arises. At the level
of very existence and very consciousness, "I" is
identical to every thing or condition that arises. The "whole
body," then, simultaneously includes all that arises
(past, present, future, or eternal), since, at the level of
very existence and very consciousness, "I" is unable
to differentiate itself from any arising in order to know
what it is.
At the level of the experiential body-mind, "I"
can know about things arising. The manifest body-mind or "me"
appears and functions relative to all other arising conditions.
Therefore, manifest or born existence is the play of knowing
about, but it simultaneously exists as the consciousness than
which there is no other, for "I" do not know what
a single thing is, and, therefore, "I" is every
thing. "I" includes the existence of all that arises.
The Condition of "I" is that of which all arising
is only a modification or variation—but which is not
itself ever in any sense changed.
Such is the Paradox that is "I" in the case of
every one. All arising, all beings are described by this Paradox.
And the ultimate destiny of "I" is likewise necessarily
contained in this same Paradox. It is Mystery. "I"
is eternal Sacrifice, without ultimate knowledge. Realization
of the Paradox of our existence is not knowledge (a position
independent of the Paradox) but it is Wisdom, or the tacit
presumption of the Way of the Paradox itself. If "I"
presume the Way of Ignorance, the Law is fulfilled, and "I"
am free to live and exist prior to fear, even though "I"
constantly move in Mystery and am given no ultimate knowledge.
If "I" do not presume the Way of Ignorance, the
Way of the Process of existence, but seek knowledge instead,
then fear is the motive of my life, and existence itself always
appears to be at stake.
The recent death of an other and the death of "I,"
which is yet to come, are a perfect insult to all knowledge.
If we rest in this insult, then we are moved to the life of
Wisdom, wherein no answer and no experience can ever possess
or define us. Wisdom presumes the Paradox and the Mystery
of existence. Wisdom is moved to the Way of sacrifice, to
love, to present happiness, and not to the Way of ultimate
knowledge. Knowledge is never more than "knowledge about"
— and "knowledge about" is confounded by death.
There is no knowledge about things that is senior to death.
Death is the transformation of the knower. It is fundamentally
a process of the knower rather than a process of his or her
knowledge. Death is a process in which the knower is transformed,
and all previous or conditional knowing is scrambled or confounded
in the process of death. Therefore, to consider death is fruitless,
since the knower is what is changed by death.
To confront death in Truth we must be humbled and confounded.
The death of an other reminds us that in every moment we are
principally confronted not by defined objects that are independent
of us but by an indefinable Process that includes us. The
death of an other reminds us that sacrifice is the Way of
Life. When we confront the death of an other we are confronted
by Mystery or Paradox, and we are confronted by the demand
for participation or sacrifice founded in the acceptance of
the necessary Paradox or Mystery of existence. Wisdom is such
acceptance, and the participatory sacrifice is love or present
happiness. It is unobstructed feeling-attention in all relations.
It is to dwell in the profundity that confounds all knowing.
It is to resort to the presumption of absolute Ignorance as
the Truth of our unknowable existence.
Hold on to no thing and no one, not even your self. Be certain
of no knowledge. Be the sacrifice of all conditions in every
moment, and thus abide in Communion with the eternal Truth,
wherein the root of our independence is eternally hidden and
our common Identity is always already Revealed.
In this Way we will affirm and participate in the necessarily
eternal Existence in which we all appear: Let us surrender
into Infinity with all our friends and hold on to no thing
or condition that ever appears. Let us forget all things in
present Happiness, and so forgive the universe for all its
playful changes. Let us always love one another, and so forgive
one another for appearing, for changing, and for passing out
of present sight. So be it.
|